Posts from the ‘Christopher Cross’ Category

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Christopher “Chris” Cross (born Christopher Charles Geppert; May 3, 1951) is an American singer-songwriter from San Antonio, Texas. Cross first played with a San Antonio-based cover band named Flash (not to be confused with the early 1970s English band of the same name) before signing a solo contract with Warner Bros. in 1978.

Christopher Cross is the self-titled debut album by Christopher Cross, released in December 1979. Recorded in mid-1979, the album was one of the early digitally recorded albums, utilizing the 3M Digital Recording System. In 1981, it won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. It has been noted for being one of the most influential soft rock albums of the early 1980s.

Christopher Cross‘ debut was a huge hit and widely acclaimed, at least among industry professionals (critics didn’t give it a second listen), leading to multi-platinum success and Grammys. In retrospect, it might seem like the kind of success that’s disproportional to the record itself, especially to hipper-than-thou younger generations, but in truth, Christopher Cross was a hell of a record — it just was a hell of a soft rock record, something that doesn’t carry a lot of weight among most audiences. That doesn’t erase Cross‘ considerable gifts as a craftsman. Yes, he does favor sentimentality and can be very sweet on the ballads, but his melodicism is rich and construction tight, so there’s a sturdy foundation for the classy professional gloss provided by his studio pros and friends, including indelible backing vocals by Michael McDonald. And while the hits like the dreamy “Sailing” and the surging “Ride Like the Wind” deserved all the attention, they’re hardly the only highlights here — to borrow a sports metaphor, this has a deep bench, and there’s not a weak moment here. In fact, soft rock albums hardly ever came better than this, and it remains one of the best mainstream albums of its time.